AI web expert profile of the day: Ian Hickson

This is a “just for fun” series in which I’m asking OpenAI’s ChatGPT for 10 quotes from famous web experts. The content of the quotes may be wrong - in fact, assume they are entirely bogus (if you reshare include a similar notice). What’s real is respect and love for everyone of these experts. Thank you for your work in web design and development.

Ian Hickson, a web developer and one of the editors of the HTML5 specification, has been involved in shaping web standards. Here are some quotes attributed to him:

  1. "HTML is the one and only true cross-platform language."

  2. "The goal is to make web browsers act the same. There are going to be mistakes, but as long as you make different mistakes you won't get hurt."

  3. "One of the most important factors in the success of a technology is that it works transparently."

  4. "The best way to move forward is to move forward."

  5. "The most fundamental part of web development is network programming."

  6. "The only way to make sure your spec is implementable is to implement it."

  7. "Standards that fail to interoperate are worse than no standards at all."

  8. "The key is to understand that the Web is not about control. If you want control, you need to go to something like Flash."

  9. "The job of a specification is to allow independent implementation. It’s not to specify exactly how every feature works in all cases."

  10. "The web's greatest strength, I believe, is often seen as a limitation, as a defect. It is the nature of the web to be flexible, and it should be our role as designers and developers to embrace this flexibility, and produce pages which, by being flexible, are accessible to all."

Please note that the accuracy of quotes may depend on the sources available.